This really might be Alexandra Petri’s best column ever. I think it’s perfect, and I’m a hard grader.
(If you are experiencing Déjà vu, you’re not crazy. I put this up last week, but it was only up for 5 or 10 minutes before another post went up, so only about 10 people saw it. This post from Petri deserves more than that!)
Help Wanted: Speaker needed in the House of Representatives
Help wanted!
We are in urgent need of a new speaker for the House of Representatives! Our most recent speaker, Kevin, had to leave unexpectedly, and we are shorthanded with a lot of important business coming up!
Who we are:
The U.S. House of Representatives! We have been called “the second-most august legislative body in the United States” and a lot of other things that are not printable in a family newspaper. Not ringing a bell? We were in a “School House Rock.” Or if you heard anyone complaining about partisan gridlock grinding something to a halt, that was probably us.
In our House, unlike an increasing number of statehouses around the country, gerrymandering has not resulted in a Republican majority that is trying to lock everyone with a womb in a vault underground where they cannot vote and their screams cannot be heard. No, here it has just resulted in a steadily increasing inability to keep the country functional! This is the place where Lauren Boebert goes for work! So do Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Marjorie Taylor Greene and more than 10 Mikes!
Speaker is the most important position we have to offer. This job has launched the careers of Newt Gingrich (failed presidential candidate), John Boehner (cannabis lobbyist), Paul Ryan (something at a … think tank, maybe?). Every man who has recently held this position has run away from it screaming, “No! Don’t send me back there! I don’t want to go back!” Though if you ask him what he saw, he will not answer, so there’s a possibility it’s haunted! Just in time for spooky season!
Do I need to be a member to apply? No! You don’t technically need to be a member of the House of Representatives to be speaker, but it helps if you are a member because that is one fewer vote you will need to wrangle.
What does the job entail? You have one job: Make all the laws for the entire country. This includes passing a budget so the government can keep running! If this sounds too overwhelming, just impeach the president.
Is there a dress code? Oh God, don’t ask us that right now.
What are the day-to-day responsibilities? You must count votes! While you’re doing this, keep in mind that there is a club of anywhere from eight to 45 people who don’t want you to get anything done, and some of them might hate your guts! Also, fundraising.
Requirements:
Must be able to count! Other useful skills include herding cats and walking and chewing gum at the same time, though these might be metaphors. You will get to preside from the chair, and recognize or not recognize people, and give them the floor (these might also be metaphors).
I see here that this job was done by a woman for eight years (nonconsecutively); how hard can it possibly be? Harder than you’d think!
Job perks include:
Great seat at State of the Union address, if you’re a fan of Joe Biden. Note: You cannot sell or trade the seat!
You get a little hammer!
Work with a man named Chip!
Second in line to the presidency of the United States!
Popcorn (We can get popcorn if this is important to you.)
Ideal candidate skills and traits:
Have a clear agenda but also be willing to reach across the aisle; be actively interested in making people’s lives better, either by repealing laws that don’t make sense or passing laws that do; be willing to listen and compromise, with the understanding that people live in this country and like it here and it would bring them peace of mind if the government did not arbitrarily stop working every four to six weeks.
But we’re probably just going to pick someone Matt Gaetz wants.
Open thread.
Our Two Candidates for Virginia House of Delegates (you guys did it! we reached our $20k goal!)
WaterGirl
We were about to get a big storm (just started) so I went out and picked the last of my cosmos, which were about to get beat up in the storm before they freeze next week.
Alison Rose
LOL this line got me the most:
When I worked at Mother Jones, we were in a union, and one of the things in the contract (hammered out long before I got there) was what the company would supply to employees in the kitchen. This was mostly the obvious things like coffee, tea, milk (fucking like 8 varieties, which I had to go buy when I first started), sugar, etc. But also: popcorn. Because for some reason, apparently a lot of editorial type people like popcorn. Which meant the whole office often smelled like microwaved popcorn.
Old School
Good luck getting through the storm!
And feel free to post this Petri column weekly until there’s a new speaker.
Villago Delenda Est
Ms. Petri is truly a treasure.
WaterGirl
@Alison Rose: oh, I hope it wasn’t the fake butter kind. The smell of that stuff popping makes me feel kind of sick.
Alison Rose
@WaterGirl: Pretty!!
Villago Delenda Est
@Old School: So, until January, 2025.
Alison Rose
@WaterGirl: Thankfully, no. But even the plain kind can have a pretty strong smell for a while. We also had someone who would microwave frozen fish dinners and I was like “I want an addendum to the contract that this is a felony”.
jackmac
Thanks for reposting. It’s a good one and Petri is a national treasure!
geg6
Okay, I am finally done with LGM. Loomis is over there calling Biden no better than Stephen Miller because of the stupid border wall funding he never wanted but is forced to spend. Fucking is as big a raging, idiotic asshole as Steve Bannon. Maybe he should just endorse Cenk Uygur for the nomination. Or maybe be his running mate. I’m sure they’ll be trollishly happy together.
AlaskaReader
I’m afraid Jay has expectations that can’t be met, I don’t believe McMorris Rogers has the influence to make Jay’s dream come true.
Baud
@geg6:
Weird hill to die on. I would have thought it would have been Israel if anything.
VeniceRiley
@Alison Rose: My wife says fish is not allowed in the staff break room at the prison.
Hillary for SPEAKER!
geg6
@Baud:
Oh, that was in there too.
geg6
@WaterGirl:
I’m fine with popcorn smells. Unless they burn it every time like a former coworker always did. Now THAT is a terrible smell.
WaterGirl
@Villago Delenda Est: I would have Petri’s babies. Except she already has one!
Baud
@geg6: At least that’s a voluntary act.
Anoniminous
Republicans are supposedly voting for their nominee for Speaker. I’ve gotten a copy of the sheet delivered to various news (sic) organizations:
If you see white smoke from the chimney it means they are burning paper and no one has won.
If you see brown smoke from the chimney it means they are burning coal and Jordan has won.
If you see black greasy smoke from the chimney it means they are burning Gaetz and everyone has won.
Tony Jay
Petri has a delightful touch with the stiletto and a great feeling for the rhythm of a properly drawn-out gutting.
Brachiator
It’s wild to think that everything she wrote is still applicable.
Alison Rose
@Anoniminous:
LOLZ. And there was much rejoicing.
zhena gogolia
@geg6: Wow, that is disturbing.
H.E.Wolf
She probably has less influence than she once did, because so many of the current House Republicans are several bubbles off-plumb.
However, as she’s the current Republican Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and the former Chair of the House Republican Conference from 2012 to 2018, it is understandable why the Democratic Governor of her home state would suggest she make an effort.
Particularly if he knows she would fail. :)
smith
I seem to be the only person in the world who doesn’t like popcorn, but I really like the way it smells. I think my dislike of eating it is due to the fact that it smells so much better than it tastes. It’s just too disappointing. I feel pretty much the same way about bacon, and used to feel that way about coffee before I discovered its miraculous pharmacological properties.
Bill Arnold
Has anyone asked Nancy Pelosi if she read that? (And if she laughed?)
rikyrah
@geg6:
Nobody who says this is serious. If you can’t see the difference
rikyrah
@Anoniminous:
BWA HA AHA HA HA HA HA HAA
Shalimar
@geg6: If you’re really done with LGM, tell Loomis he’s an asshole and he will ban you. I got banned a month ago in a music thread for telling him he will eventually be an asshole to everyone he knows at one point or another. Despite having 5 badges and a 15-year comment history on the site.
This was after he trollingly called everyone who likes Jimmy Buffett’s music a terrible person. I haven’t bothered asking to be reinstated. I like the other front pagers and even like Loomis’s writing when he sticks to his expertise. The constant trolling and unnecessary insults just got to be too much.
WaterGirl
@Tony Jay: Not to mention the whole post stayed totally in character with the “job announcement” theme right through to the end – she didn’t just use it as an entree for the post.
Respect.
smith
Word just out that Jordan won today’s vote, but the count is not yet known.
trollhattan
@smith: When a kid I loved the smell of coffee, especially a freshly opened can (sorry to frighten you kids, but this whole “whole bean” thing was waaaay off in the future) but did not learn to like the stuff until decades later. Blecch. Popcorn I liked (stovetop, corn oil) and associated the smell with movie theaters and Sears.
Microwave popcorn has never smelled like popcorn to me, can’t even associate the two, and inevitably somebody at the office burns a batch, a smell that lingers a week, at least, also entering whatever gets heated in that microwave.
WaterGirl
@geg6: Popcorn, yes! Fake butter in microwave popcorn leaves me this close to heaving.
Scout211
Have they announced the vote yet? I must admit I did not have Rep Austin Scott on my scorecard. I don’t see any announcement yet.
ETA: it’s Jordan. Ugh.
trollhattan
@rikyrah: He also fired Newsom today. On a roll, that guy.
WaterGirl
@smith: You also just described coffee. Especially coffee grinds. If the smell of coffee when you open the can for the first time – or if you have just ground beans – was illegal, I would be on street corners trying to buy it.
trollhattan
@Scout211:
So we’re gonna have rasslin’ on the House floor now?
smith
Just saw Jordan got 124 and Scott 81. Still some arm-twisting to go.
Shalimar
@smith: Who were the other candidates? The guy from Georgia I just heard of for the first time when he announced? The important part isn’t the winning. It is how many votes and how close he is to 217.
edit: I see your results. That is not a win. That is a “fuck you. find another candidate”.
WaterGirl
@trollhattan: Who is Newsom?
WaterGirl
@smith: I hope that cocky son of a bitch is humiliated. I mean, come on, America wants him!
The arrogance of that. ALL OF AMERICA apparently wants sleazy, slimy Gym Jordan.
edit: Who the hell is Austin Scott?
Anoniminous
Report Jordan got “around” 124 votes and Scott got 81.
Not enough to take to the next step, IMHO.
Alison Rose
@trollhattan: When I was a kid, we had a popcorn maker like this one and I loved it. Much better than the microwave stuff.
Also…I’ll one-up your childhood love of the smell of coffee. I used to eat coffee beans as a kid. When my mom would take out the jar of beans in the evening, I’d sneak my hand in and eat a few. And she would get strong dark roasts, too. I was a weird kid, I guess.
Baud
@Shalimar:
That’s why BJ is superior. We don’t need no stinkin’ badges.
CaseyL
Hearing Jordan only got 124 votes is the first good news I’ve seen from this ongoing horrorshow.
WaterGirl
@Alison Rose: See me at #35.
WaterGirl
@CaseyL: Yes! I cannot think of a choice worse than Jordan. Except Trump.
MattF
@smith: So… Jordan lost, despite a lack of serious opposition. That’s an achievement.
smith
@Shalimar: If they try to bring it to a vote on the floor, the winning total depends a lot on how many Dems are present. I saw a guess that today there are 209. I’m wondering if they’ll do a floor vote today, because Jordan probably needs more time to intimidate his colleagues.
WaterGirl
@Baud: So the guy that was fired was one of the authors? Or a long-time commenter?
WaterGirl
@smith:
This wasn’t a floor vote? was it another secret ballot?I googled. Another secret ballot.
Alison Rose
@WaterGirl: Governor Newsom. Loomis hates him and I presume recently started hating him even harder, hence “firing”.
Shalimar
@WaterGirl: They keep doing the caucus thing and insisting that everyone has to vote for the winner. Even though at least 50 of them have made it clear they’re only willing to vote for their own different favorite.
smith
@WaterGirl: Yes, it was a secret Republican-only vote. The only reason I can think of for a candidate to want a floor vote now, or soon, would be to identify who his supporters are (and aren’t).
Anoniminous
Another vote on “Will you support Jordan on the floor.”
I do not know, but suspect, this one isn’t secret
Frankensteinbeck
Yeah, that’s a thing, isn’t it? When Scalise dropped out, I figured there was at least a decent chance that would give Jordan the win by default. No, it looks like there’s plenty enough House Republicans who would rather write in a candidate than vote for Jordan. I mean, it only takes, what, six, to make him unelectable?
WaterGirl
@Alison Rose: Oh. So he doesn’t use the word “fired” to pretend fire him? That’s just trollhattan’s shorthand reference to the hating?
Shalimar
@Alison Rose: I don’t read LGM anymore, but that sounds nutty even for Loomis. Why would he think Newsom cares about his moderately-popular-blogger opinion?
smith
Oh, they’re doing a second ballot right now — not clear if it’s secret.
WaterGirl
@Shalimar: Hell, they don’t even follow the actual rules.
Any other Rep. can say anything they want, but they can’t make everyone vote for anyone.
Are they delusional? Who in particular is pushing that?
trnc
@Anoniminous:
Alternatively, it’s enough to go ahead and schedule the next 11 steps, provided each “step” is “vote for speaker.”
WaterGirl
@smith: Is someone live blogging? I would love to follow it.
geg6
Today’s Dems are not like the Dems of yesteryear.
Apparently, Gretchen Whitmer is doing a fundraiser for Democratic County Commissioner candidates in Bucks County, PA. It’s a zoom engagement, but I’ve never seen such a thing before.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Alison Rose: My only issue with my induction cooktop which is almost completely brilliant, is that the one thing I haven’t been able to get it to do is pop popcorn. I used to make popcorn on the stove on my gas rang all the time and almost all the kernels popped. I’ve tried reducing the heat to 5-7 or cranking it way up, and no matter what I do I still end up with a bunch of unpopped kernels mixed with burnt popcorn. I cannot figure out why a few kernels pop and then burn to the bottom while the rest just sit there never getting going.
So I bought a Hotpop silicone microwave popper. You use regular popcorn in it NOT chemically coated bagged microwave popcorn. Best to pop the popcorn dry and then add butter/oil etc. after. The popcorn pops up nice and dry and fluffy. It’s acceptable, though you have to add more oil after popping because it has absolutely none. I miss the way the stovetop popped stuff gets infused with oil. But the silicone ones are reusable and do a good job as far as popping goes. Haven’t had one of those air popper ones in forever. I never thought they worked very well and popcorn got scattered everywhere. But, better than not having popcorn at all if you live in a dorm room.
smith
@WaterGirl: Front page of Dkos.
Ruckus
Paul Ryan (something at a … think tank, maybe?)
Janitor?
zhena gogolia
@Baud: lol 😃
ETA: I guess there is no Humphrey Bogart emoji.
Brachiator
@smith:
Everybody’s got their thing. I love popcorn, with butter or butter flavored oil. I used to go to the movies almost every Saturday afternoon as a kid, and would always order popcorn and a hot dog.
Much later, as an adult I walked by a discount movie theater after going to the post office. The smell of popcorn was so enticing that I walked in and asked if I could just buy a big bucket of popcorn. It was delicious.
Love bacon and coffee. Never drank coffee much until college.
Anoniminous
Jesus H. Christ. It is a secret ballot? How freakin’ dumb is that!
billcoop4
Loomis is a joyless prat.
BC
Shalimar
@WaterGirl: That was the rule they “agreed” upon in advance, which I think just means McHenry and Scalise thought it was the best way to get him elected. Scalise pushed it hard in that press conference where he declared himself the annointed nominee no one could oppose. And I have seen Jordan supporters try to push it today after doing everything they could to undermine Scalise just yesterday. It’s a clown show.
Alison Rose
@Shalimar: I found the post and he’s blathering about NEWSOM IS WORSE THAN WILSON* HE SOLD US OUT!!!! kind of shit about some vetoes Newsom’s issued this year. And strawmanning all over the place about people who had defended him in a prior post being DEFEND ALL DEMOCRATS when that’s obviously not the case.
On the vetoes…yeah, a few of them I’m frustrated over and don’t understand. But some of them have perfectly reasonable explanations, and some of them…well, politics sucks sometimes. But Loomis apparently thinks the only acceptable Democrat is one who does things the way Loomis wants 100% of the time.
(*Pete Wilson, former Republican CA governor who sucked more ass than a gastroenterologist)
trollhattan
@WaterGirl:
California governor, who’s been vetoing bills in a fashion that makes him a Republican. So we’ve been instructed.
WaterGirl
@geg6: I would love to hear more about why/how this feels so different.
smith
@Brachiator: I didn’t start drinking coffee until grad school, when it became one of life’s necessities. At first I had to load it down with cream and sugar to make it bearable, but over the years the adulterations fell away, and now I drink it straight black and very strong.
trnc
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: That’s too bad about the induction cooktop. How large a pot are you using, and what kind of oil? We use our large pasta pot with canola oil and set the level at 8 of 9, and it works well for us.
Scout211
If you don’t want Gym and his angry minions to come after you to strong-arm you, you definitely want a secret ballot for whether you will vote for him on the floor for speaker. Self-preservation. Plus, it likely is a more accurate count.
Frankensteinbeck
@Anoniminous:
My guess is, they were so incredibly pissed off at each other during the McCarthy voting, they figured secret ballots would reduce the amount of screaming arguments and possibly violence. Remember the violence? They were really, really pissed off at each other during the McCarthy election.
bbleh
@smith: Well a margin like that worked just FINE for Scalise. For several hours!
WaterGirl
@trollhattan: Ah, thank you.
Ruviana
@billcoop4: I still read Campos and Lemieux but Loomis has gotten terrible! You can see it in some of the comments people make. I think he got much worse after he got tenure.
trollhattan
@Alison Rose: Surprised your little eyes did not pop open in the middle of the night, but maybe little kids are immune from caffeine (Mountain Dew and all).
Shalimar
@Alison Rose: Loomis also thinks everyone should hate ketchup because he hates ketchup. Loomis is a very strange man.
Ken
I take it Jordan has reversed his position on this since Wednesday.
Ruviana
@Shalimar: Don’t forget vodka!
Anoniminous
@Scout211:
Politics 101: need to know your enemy. Can’t strong arm, bribe, coax, and buy people if you don’t know who they are.
@Frankensteinbeck:
They are a bunch of howler monkeys. Screaming at each other is their default state.
trnc
I hope you reconsider. Loomis is irritating, but I think there’s some very good writing there, sometimes even by him. I generally deal with his crap by writing comments that will irritate him back. Case in point today:
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@trnc: I use my pasta pot too and have tried everything from 6 to H (which is 10). The only higher setting is P which is a really high powerboost setting that boils a large pot of water amazingly fast but is serious overkill for anything else. I’ve tried it on the big burner and on one of the mid-sized ones and haven’t had success with either.
This conversation lead me to buy a West Bend stir crazy stir popper. The silicone ones work fast and are pretty good but this one I can pop in oil.
MattF
@Ruviana: I gave up on Loomis long ago because of his music opinions. There is, for him, One True Way, (something something authenticity) and no one may deviate from that. And I disagree.
ColoradoGuy
Still use an air popper, does a great job. The only problem is adding melted butter to the popcorn bowl makes a mess that takes longer to clean up than making and eating the popcorn.
Shalimar
@Ken: Now that Jordan is the leader, I am pretty sure he has reversed his position. I have not seen a direct comment from him, but I have seen 3 different surrogates say everyone has to vote for him now.
trollhattan
@Ruviana: Campos, I think is their best writer and always worth reading, Lemieux and Farley too, for different reasons.
Tony Jay
@WaterGirl:
Commitment to the bit, stay in character, exploit every opportunity for mockery that your chosen form provides. There’s no feeling quite like the satisfaction of pulling off a proper, well-judged skit. Makes heroin feel like a glass of warm lemonade.
Or so I’ve heard. Probably.
trnc
@Shalimar: Yeah, we had a bit of a back and forth when he wrote that Queen was all hype and totally average musically. I am by no means a huge fan, but anyone who doesn’t recognize Queen’s talent and well deserved influence in rock doesn’t have any business commenting beyond “Well, they’re not my cup of tea.”
WaterGirl
@Tony Jay: haha.
Shalimar
@MattF: I am open to the idea that there is One True Music Way. I am not open to the idea that I will find it by listening to someone who is somehow a huge fan of both Merle Haggard and Ornette Coleman.
MattF
@Tony Jay: Here is Ms. Petri being serious.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Alison Rose: Wasn’t Loomis a hard core right winger early on?
trnc
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: I’m glad you found an alternative. I don’t know what we’d do if we couldn’t make popcorn.
Side note – I am not thrilled at some other things on our cooktop. The 1 and 2 settings are completely worthless, so I rarely have it set below 4 even for simmering. Also, the lowest level on the matching range hood almost sucks our cat into it and is like standing next to a freakin’ airplane getting ready to take off.
Shalimar
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: I don’t think Loomis was ever a rightwinger. His expertise is as a labor historian, and he is solidly left on every humanitarian issue I can think of. Which is why it is so strange that he doesn’t show any personal empathy for anyone. I can’t think of any other liberal like him. It is almost always a rightwing trait.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Shalimar: I must be thinking of someone else then.
Alison Rose
@Shalimar: This just makes me want to eat ketchup.
Matt McIrvin
@Shalimar: I’ve encountered a lot of self-described socialists/Marxists who are like that. Puritans at heart, more fond of bashing liberals than the right, and dedicated to burning any bridges that might lead to them actually accomplishing some kind of change.
The thing that differentiates Loomis from them is that he’s smart enough to know that it’s worth trying to win elections and that the Democratic Party is decent people’s only real shot at that. But he feels kind of dirty about it, I think.
Matt McIrvin
(And I’ll be honest: There is something in me that kind of wants to be like that: pure, not associated with anything that is compromised or bad. It comes out as a relentless negativity. It doesn’t lead to good places. Loomis’s screeds actually make me feel guilty for being a liberal, for a little while.)
Tony Jay
@MattF:
The anger just sizzles off that piece, made even better by the determinedly cheery tone of the writing, with its always effective conceit of “I’m just walking you through this thing of value that you don’t know anything about because they took it from you”.
She’s definitely a treasure.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@trnc: Mine simmers on 2 and sometimes even gently on L, though for a larger pot that’s more of a keep warm setting. Overall it’s amazing – much better than gas much less conventional electric. My parents have a glass top conventional electric and they’re green with envy over how my induction range performs compared to theirs.
trnc
@Matt McIrvin: It’s good for us to have our views challenged from the inside, but it’s ironic that an oft-used meme on LGM is “I can’t just give my heart to anyone …” when writing about some self described progressives who constantly trash the left.
Mousebumples
Late to the thread, but highly endorse a Stir Crazy for popcorn popping.
My husband is a popcorn snob and when mine from childhood broke, I got him that new version.
Ruviana
@trollhattan: Yes! I forgot about Farley!
Ruviana
@MattF: Yes! And why is he doing all those film reviews? I pass on a lot of his posts.
Dopey-o
I have a Poppery II . machine. No oil, no silicates, no nothin’.
Also roasts green coffee beans.
WaterGirl
@Dopey-o: Oh, how fun!